Читать книгу Tale of the Taconic Mountains - Mike M.D. Romeling - Страница 13

Father Mancuso hated his doorbell. It didn’t ring like a normal bell should but instead buzzed and rattled as though you were being descended upon by wasps and rattlesnakes at the same time. As always, he startled badly when he heard its dreadful racket, startled even more than usual because he had been in the process of leaving and hardly expected anyone to be arriving so early in the morning. He had been about to visit Mrs. Cogan who had Alzheimers and would call him by her son’s name. She had always hoped her only son might become a priest himself. Instead he had become a bookie down in Albany. He had not been able to survive the advent of off-track-betting and had died young of dissipation. Mrs. Cogan had never quite got over the disappointment. For the late Mr. Cogan, the disappointment had not been so much that his son had gone crooked and lazy, but that he had failed even at those modest ambitions. Since Mr. Cogan had died, his wife had taken to speaking loudly and often to him—more often than when he had been alive—directing her comments to an empty chair across from the couch she seldom left anymore. When she did this in Father Mancuso’s presence, the priest had a hard time hiding a bad case of the creeps.

This being the case, Father Mancuso was not terribly disappointed that his visit might be delayed by whoever might be ringing his doorbell. As he moved toward the door, he saw a copy of the April Readers Digest on the floor. His back was in its usual stiff and sore early morning condition, and so rather than bending down to pick it up, he kicked it under the chair, shouting “goal” as it accurately passed between the legs and disappeared underneath. The doorbell rattled annoyingly again and he hurried on to answer it.

The woman at the door was a stranger to him and he guessed also a stranger to these parts. You just didn’t see women in full length fur coats around Cedar Falls. Father Mancuso knew little about fur other than it was expensive and becoming offensive to some people. She was somewhere in her middle years but she looked like she had the means and the know-how to wage a successful battle against the ravages of time and gravity. There were gold hoop earrings hanging below her neatly coiffed auburn hair and a pleasant scent of perfume as she held out her hand.

Anna Kilgallen was her name and when Father Mancuso led her into his parlor, she sat down and gracefully crossed her nice legs in a manner that suggested to the priest that she might next produce a cigarette in a long ivory holder from her leather purse. But she did not. Throughout the initial amenities, she flashed rapid little smiles between sentences, revealing a nervous unease.

“I know I should have called you first and in fact I did call last night but there was no answer. I thought I would just come in person and hope to catch you this morning. You can spare me a few minutes, Father?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll get right to the point. My daughter is missing; has been for some years actually.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. And what is the child’s age?”

“Christy would be twenty-one now. She was eighteen when she left us.” There was a brief constricted smile. “I find it difficult to speak of this, Father. It’s not a pretty story and my own role was hardly stellar I’m sorry to say. This is all very hard.”

Anna Kilgallen struck the priest as someone who had generally gotten what she wanted in life; not one to be plagued by difficulties or to suffer them gladly. But in this case she had gotten every parent’s nightmare—a lost child. He smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “Please remember that I have been regularly hearing confessions for over twenty years. I have been privy to most of the foibles and mistakes we are all prone to in God’s world. And of course our conversation can be strictly confidential if you wish it so.”

Her smile came again, a smile that had no doubt gained her much in her life until now it was hard to suppress even if at times she wished she had. “I am afraid I have somewhat lapsed in religious matters, Father.”

“We all suffer lapses, Mrs. Kilgallen. And I myself would be out of work if it were otherwise.”

This allowed Anna a more relaxed and genuine smile and she did indeed feel she had come to someone she could speak freely to about this painful business. “Yes, of course you are right. Thank you. Well, as I say, Christy was eighteen years old when she ran away. Sometimes, looking back on it all, I am surprised she lasted that long. I met Dean when I was just out of college. He was fifteen years older than I but he swept me off my feet or at least that’s what I told myself. We were both from prosperous families out on Long Island. The difference was my father eventually failed in his real estate business and even got in some legal trouble with the authorities and the tax people and whatnot. When he died while I was still in college, everything had to be sold and my mother was barely able to hang onto the small condo they had in Manhattan. The house on Long Island was gone as was the property on Martha’s Vineyard. And there was nothing left in the bank or from the investments and so on. By the time I fell in love with Dean, the choice seemed very clear to me: I could marry this rich, rather exciting man who could keep me, as they say, in the manner to which I had become accustomed, or I could take my chances trying to eke out a living somewhere on my own. And to say my mother was in favor of my union with a wealthy man like Dean would be an understatement, embarrassed and depressed as she was with what she called the new realities of her life.

“And so Dean and I married and at first all seemed well. Christy was born two years later and of course we doted on her for a while. But I always thought Dean would have preferred a son who shared his kind of drive and ambition. Christy wasn’t that way; she liked to wander the beaches and woods with her camera and was a bit of a day dreamer. I think after a while Dean just lost interest in her or was too busy with his career and chasing other women—if I may be so crass about it, Father. When that started, I compensated by drinking more and ignoring the situation like I guess you’re supposed to in the circles we travelled in. No one at the clubs or the dinner parties wants any messy personal problems interfering with the so-called sophisticated good times. Besides, half of them were probably sleeping around themselves. And being young and stupid, I had signed a prenuptial agreement that would have tossed me out of that life if I had left Dean. That thought terrified me and would have made my mother hate me forever, or so I convinced myself at the time. And so Christy was on her own, at least emotionally. You try to pretend your children are unaware of what goes on in your private life, but the truth is they always know ten times more than you think they do. Of course we shipped her off to all the best summer camps and prep schools, and if you had insinuated I wasn’t a good parent, I would have bitten your head off. And there were good times too, early on, when Christy was younger and she and I were close; at least I like to think so. But as I see it now, I’m sure Christy would have felt as though she was never the most important thing in her parents’ lives. I don’t think a child ever overcomes that. Not completely anyway. Listen, Father, am I getting too deeply into all this. I know I just barged in here this morning and...” Her voice trailed off and she looked down at her folded hands on her lap.

It was very quiet in the room; only the hum of the old refrigerator in the kitchen, and the occasional passing car outside broke the long silence. Father Mancuso shifted in his chair and said, “You may share as much or as little as you wish. Whatever feels right for you, Mrs. Kilgallen.” In truth he was fascinated.

“You are most kind, Father. Well of course there were warning signs. There always are I suppose. Christy never did particularly well in school and she became moody. She would come home late frequently, obviously under the influence of something. We hoped and pretended it was just drink, as though that would make it less alarming somehow; just a variation of what we did at the club ourselves. I was too apprehensive to ask and Dean, I think, was just worried that her behavior would somehow besmirch our grand make-believe reputation. Or that it might require him to actually spend some time with us to address the situation. I remember one evening when we were all having dinner together for once. This would have been during Christy’s Hare Krishna phase. Dean was totally freaked out about that too. Anyway, the two of them were arguing viciously while I was as usual trying to play the part of peacemaker. Finally Dean shouted that he was going to order a psychiatrist. He said it in the same way someone might say they were going to order a pizza or flowers, and it struck me as so funny that I began to laugh uncontrollably—hysterically really. I suppose it was all the tension trying to get out of me, and I just couldn’t stop. Dean looked at me as though I’d gone looney. That finally got Christy laughing too, and she asked her father who exactly he was ordering the psychiatrist for, and whether he could be ordered with extra cheese. We couldn’t even stop laughing when Dean stomped out of the house. We didn’t see him for three days. Probably shacked up with one of his girlfriends, if I may be so indelicate.” Anna pursed her lips and lowered her eyes, perhaps to assure the priest she seldom was indelicate. “About a week later, Christy left home.”

“And where did she go, Mrs. Kilgallen?”

“She stayed with the Hare Krishna people for a month or so. I visited her there several times. It was a ghastly place with all those robes and chanting and shaved heads and funny body movements. They would always give me an armload of literature when I left which I usually threw away on the way home so Dean wouldn’t see it. Once, when I forgot, Dean found it and burned it all up in our hibachi and then got drunk.”

“He was more upset than you were, I take it, concerning her new beliefs.”

Anna considered that for a moment. “No, it wasn’t about her beliefs, really. It was more that she was not following whatever script Dean had written for her inside his own head. I suppose that script would have had her off to college at Barnard or Vassar where she could find some Mr. Wonderful who would be very much like himself. Dean was a dominating man who wanted maximum control with minimal involvement. That of course does not excuse me for letting the bastard get away with it so long. Pardon my language, Father.”

The priest smiled. “I hear much worse on a regular basis. Please continue.”

“Well for myself, I assumed in my usual lame way that this was all just a phase in Christy’s life that would pass with time, much like I tried to believe Dean’s infidelities were some typical mid-life crisis sort of thing. But then suddenly there was no more time; Dean died of a heart attack while making love to one of his girlfriends. They say that happens to middle-aged men sometimes—en flagrant delicto they call it in polite society—and of course our lives came crashing down. Christy came home for the funeral which was dreadful because everyone knew what had happened but pretended they didn’t as they all patted me daintily and whispered condolences in my ear. Christy stayed with me for several weeks to help sort everything out and I was beginning to think that some good might come out of the whole shambles; that at least Christy and I might rebuild our own relationship. But then one morning I found a note from her on the kitchen table saying she needed to get away for a while and not to worry, she’d be in touch and she loved me and...” Anna’s eyes welled up with tears and she dug into her handbag for kleenex. “It’s been three years she’s been gone now, Father.”

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Kilgallen,” Father Mancuso said, feeling totally unoriginal and inadequate. “May I get you something to drink, some tea perhaps?”

Anna shook her head no as she folded the kleenex neatly into a square and put it back in her purse. Father Mancuso belatedly realized he probably should have offered her a better disposal option, but Anna had already snapped the purse shut and continued speaking.

“Christy called me several times from Boston. She said she was taking photography courses up there and doing modeling for art students at one of the universities to support herself. She must have been moving around a lot because when I tried to send money to her, the checks would come back as undeliverable. And after a while, Father, we ran out of things to talk about on the phone and the calls from her became less frequent. I got cross with her several times, told her she was wasting her life and all that typical mother stuff. But we both knew how little I had done with my own life, even if Christy didn’t throw it in my face. I tried to let her know how much it would mean to me to have her home, that I was lonely and feeling kind of lost, which I very much was of course. It wasn’t like the phoney-baloney club crowd wanted anything to do with me anymore. For them, I was just a reminder that the good times—the big houses, the parties, the island trips, the affairs—could all come to a bad end sometimes. They need to think it’s all forever and all so harmless. So I was alone in that big house, looking in on Christy’s room sometimes late at night when I couldn’t sleep. I’d see all her old cameras she always kept even after they were broken, and the pictures on the walls of Jones Beach and the Pine Barrens down in New Jersey that she loved so much. She told me once that those old cameras held the memories of all the favorite places she had been in her life. And I would stand there in her room thinking of other things she had said over the years, invitations for me to get closer to her that I had squandered. And so I battled away on those phone calls to somehow bring her back. She would say she’d be home for a visit soon but that she was so busy. I actually shivered when she said busy. I mean busy is what you tell some guy you don’t want to have a second date with, or what you tell the neighbors when you don’t want to go to their lame cocktail party, or what you say when you want to get off the phone. But to hear busy from your only child is like a dagger in the heart, Father.” Again her eyes grew wet and she brushed at them almost angrily with her sleeve. “And then after a while the phone calls became less frequent until recently they stopped altogether. I kept thinking that surely on my birthday or on Christmas I would hear from her. I tried writing to whatever address she had last given me. I even went to the Hare Krishna people to see if she was still in touch with them. I called some of her old friends. No one knew anything; it was like she had vanished.”

“Did your daughter say anything in your last conversations with her that would give you any clues where she might have gone?”

“Not really, no. But there was something else that worried me. She said she had been having strange disturbing dreams lately. Wasn’t that odd? Usually our phone conversations were so mundane that I think we both just ended up feeling sad; feeling the distance between us widening as we drifted away from one another. Then suddenly that business of the dreams and then right after that even the phone calls were ended. You know, Father, in between the calls I used to mentally rehearse things I would say to her, things that would matter, things that might bring us back together. But I suppose it was foolish to think that the emotional ties one fails to nurture with a child could be rescued over the phone when the child is grown. I wish now I could have just said to Christy, I know I didn’t do anywhere near my best for you and I’m sorry and there are no excuses. Then I think it would have felt better even if she’s gone. A little bit anyway. Do you know what I mean, Father?”

“Of course. And you and your daughter will be in my prayers. Is there any other way I can be of service to you?”

Anna reached into her handbag. “I have a picture of Christy with me. In fact as I stood on your doorstep, I imagined I would simply introduce myself and show you this picture. But as it turns out I’ve spilled out the whole sad story to you. It was most kind of you to bear with me on this.” She handed the picture to the priest “You see, I have had a couple of calls from people—an acquaintance of mine and an old classmate of Christy’s—claiming they may have seen her over in Bennington. I took some stock in those reports because as you know, Bennington is the kind of artsy-crafty town Christy might possibly be in if she is still pursuing her photography or her modeling or taking classes and so on. I visited Bennington twice to make inquiries and left some posters around town with her picture. Nothing happened for a year or so and then suddenly I got a call from a woman in Bennetsville. She used to live here in Cedar Falls apparently. Anyway, she claimed she may have seen Christy once. She told me a strange tale about some reclusive women who lived in the mountains around here. She said she had seen these women only once but that she thought one of them looked a lot like Christy. What do you think? Please remember this picture was taken when Christy was eighteen. She would be twenty-one now.”

Father Mancuso knew how much was riding on his answer and he could almost feel the coming disappointment in the pit of his stomach. But of course there could be no thought of holding out false hope in a matter such as this. He studied the picture. Christy had the same finely sculpted face with high cheek bones that still kept her mother looking so fine in her middle age. Her hair was dark, framing the ivory skin of her face and falling to just below her neck. But her eyes had the wary look of someone whose picture is being taken by surprise or at a bad time.

“I’m afraid, Mrs. Kilgallen, this is not Tara Boudine or her sister Ariel. Those are the women living on the mountain that your caller must have been referring to.”

“Oh, then they are sisters, these women in the mountains? I did not realize that. Is that known for a fact?”

“They represent themselves as such. But of course they are very reclusive and secretive. Little is known about them really.”

“Is it known for certain that there are only two of them?”

“That I think we can be quite certain of, yes.”

“I see. It had crossed my mind that perhaps there was some sort of commune or something, and if there was, it might be a situation that would have attracted Christy.” Anna looked down, disappointment etched on her face.

“You must take into account also that the Boudines have lived on the mountain for many years, Mrs. Kilgallen. No one’s sure exactly how long, but very much longer than the three years your daughter has been gone.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Still, I feel I must grasp at every straw, Father. You’ve been most considerate to give me so much of your time.”

There was a long silence. The priest, searching for a way to leave some hope open for this sad woman, finally said, “You should really stop in at our bowling center and talk to Gil Brady. He sees more people coming and going through Cedar Falls than anyone and I’m sure he’d allow you to post Christy’s picture there. He’s a bit of a rough-hewn man perhaps, but with a good heart I’ve always believed...did I say something wrong, Mrs. Kilgallen?” The priest had noted Anna exhaling in a long almost audible sigh as he spoke.

“Oh no, nothing that you said, Father. I’m sorry; it’s just that as you can imagine, my inquiries take me into so many of those...those types of establishments and it just never gets any easier. I imagine sometimes that I can read their thoughts when they look at Christy’s picture; that they think Christy is dead or involved in something sordid, or they’re wondering what kind of a witchy mother I must have been to drive her away. And then there are those who act like I’m greatly inconveniencing them by taking up two minutes of their precious time...oh God, I’m sorry, Father.” Anna reached again for her kleenex and dabbed her eyes. “Well, no matter, it’s got to be done and no use getting all faint about it.”

Anna stood up and offered her hand to Father Mancuso. “You know, Father, it’s strange, but in some places I’ve searched I feel far away from my daughter and in others very close. Here I feel closer than I ever have before. But they’re unlikely aren’t they, those feelings? Just wishful thinking or desperation clawing at me I suppose.”

The priest opened the door for her and smiled warmly, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I would counsel you never to disregard your feelings, Anna. The bond between a mother and child rises far above the ordinary; it is one of life’s mysteries I believe. I wish you all the best and all my prayers.”